Hard Work Does Pay Off!!

Nathan and I have been talking lately about how Heidi and Jonah are old enough to start helping around the house.  There are things they have to do now, like pick up their toys and books, but we really wanted to start them on chores and help them learn how to make and manage money.  Professional people have all kinds of opinions on how to go about this.  We've taken bits and pieces from here and there and came up with a system I think will work well for us.  At least right now.  I'm sure it'll be ever changing as they grow older. But for now, we came up with four chores for each of them to do last week.  Every time they did a chore they got to put a sticker on their chart.  At the end of the week, they presented their chart to daddy.  For each sticker they had, they earned 1 quarter.  

Heidi's responsibilities:

1. Feed/water the cat

2. Make her bed

3. Match together her, Jonah's and Clara's socks when I'm folding their laundry

4. Put up the adult silverware

Jonah's responsibilities:

1. Feed the dogs

2. Make his bed

3. Put up the socks in their right drawers after Heidi matches them

4. Put up the kids silverware

They both love to help so it was no problem at all to get them to do all this with barely a reminder.  As soon as Nathan would get home, Jonah would run to him saying, "Oof-oof?" because he knew when daddy got home they would go feed the dogs.  He LOVED feeding the dogs.  The only thing Jonah was not at all enthusiastic about was making his bed.  He had no desire whatsoever.  Not even for a sticker.  Great.  Not a good sign, I don't think.  Since his mommy is not a good bed-making example, I didn't push him to do it.  Heidi, however, is very eager to please and loved to make her bed first thing when she woke up and then would come wake me up and would want me to go right then and see her made bed.  Talk about two ends of the spectrum!  They both were happy to do their other chores so it ended up working out.  We're all still new at this, so we'll just have to tweak it as we go.

Showing off their newly made chore charts
(forgive my artistry, or lack thereof)

Ready to cash them in!!

turning in their charts for daddy to inspect

Heidi getting paid for her hard work

Jonah getting paid for his hard work

So proud of themselves!!

They both got $3 for their efforts this week.  I'm very proud of them for having a good attitude and willingness to help around the house.  We'll be teaching them to divide their money between God, savings, and spending money.  Heidi has already decided that she wants to save up for a barbie doll she saw at Target.  She was all ready to take her three dollars and go get it!  Since the doll is $15, we'll be working on the "saving up" part of the idea. =)

I have to say, even though it was a bit more tedious showing them what to do and then waiting for them to do it at their pace instead of doing it faster myself, I really like the concept behind them doing the things that I normally have to do!!  I see a lot of potential for this!! Haha!!

An Early Birthday Present

Heidi and Jonah's Birthdays are coming early this year.  Though they aren't actually until the 18th and 20th of September, we are going to have their party in Abilene this weekend.  But today Heidi got an even earlier birthday present!

The kids and I really enjoyed watching this past season of Dancing with the Stars {I think Nathan did too, he just won't admit it :) }.  We would eat in the living room on some of those nights and at almost every dance, the kids would take a break from eating and dance along with the celebrities.  It was great family time and we have a few super cute videos of the two of them "ballroom dancing".  One particular night, there was a guest dancer that did a ballet routine.  Ever since then, Heidi has been ABSOLUTELY enamored with ballet and she would want us to watch her latest ballet moves.  It has gotten worse and worse and she would give us a "dance recital" and then BEG her daddy for ballet lessons.  

With her having such beautiful looooong limbs, we thought this would actually be great for her and teach her coordination and a bit of..ahem..grace. :)  Well, lessons started tonight so we had to go ahead and give her her ballet shoes and leotard today.  We had been trying to keep it a secret for a while but she was almost too smart for her own good!  When we went to go try and buy her shoes, I knew she wouldn't really know what real ballet shoes look like so I wasn't too worried about her figuring it out.  I told her we were going to try on some shoes that maybe she could wear to church.  {Yes, that's a little white lie, but in my family, little white lies are allowed at birthdays and Christmas!! :) }  So we get to Payless, I find the shoes she is supposed to wear, and thinking I'm being so sneaky, we try some on.  

After a while, Heidi says to me, "Mama, are these ballet shoes?"

Uh-oh!! Busted!! But I try to play it cool, "Why do you think that?"

"Because the little girl on the shoe box is doing ballet."

Doh!! Great! Now I have to nonchalantly change gears!! "Well, they might be but we're just seeing if this is something that we want to do.  MAYBE you'll do ballet.  We'll just have to see....."

Thankfully Daddy was there and being the smart man that he is, immediately distracts her and gets her mind on another subject.

While he is doing that and she's not watching me, I go and buy the shoes and somehow between the two of us, we manage to get her to to completely forget about the ballet shoes.  Phew!!

It did actually come in handy that she knew they were ballet shoes because every once in a while I would ask her, remember those ballet shoes we tried on? Do you think that is really something you want to do?  Of course, I would get a very emphatic and excited yes!!  Just wanted to make sure she was serious and that it wasn't just a passing fad!

So fast forward to today...Daddy came home at lunch time and we presented her with her gift!

Little brother thought he needed to be part of the action, too!
Thankfully, he didn't seem to care that it wasn't for him!

Great packaging, huh? This was actually a last minute decision to give it to her. We were going to have her skip her first lesson and wait till her party but decided we wanted to get our money's worth!

The leotard!

She only learned this morning that ballerina's wear leotards so at this point she still didn't exactly know what was going on.

The shoe box with the ballerina girl on it!! Now she is figuring it out!

THE SHOES!!!

Now she is SOOOOO excited!!!

This was her face after we told her all this is for the ballet lessons that she gets to start...tonight!!

Trying on her ballet shoes!

She was so over-the-moon excited about the shoes and the lessons!  It was the great reaction we were hoping for and made us so excited for her.  We went out to lunch with Nathan right after this and she was squealing in the car all the way there.  Such a happy little girl!  This is what makes it so worth it!!

 Then off to lessons she went!!!

The parents have to wait in the waiting room so she had to go in by herself. She looked like such a big girl with her little bag following all the other girls into the room!!

This is when they first were starting.  They will also do tap and jazz so that's what the black shoes are for.

The teacher said they all did great! I got to peek through the curtains a few times and it was so cute watching her do the little steps!  After her hour was up, we were walking back to the car and I asked her how it went.  She said, and I quote, "It was AWE. SOME!!!!!"  When we got home she then showed all she had learned.  She was so proud and can't wait for her next lesson!!

I forgot to get one of her in her little ballerina shoes but I plan on getting one next time! I'm already looking forward to her little recital in May!!